Congratulations to Dr. Ann Marie Craig, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UBC, on receiving the CLEAR Foundation’s 2025 Operating Grant. This important award will support her project, Targeting Synapses in Alzheimer’s Dementia and Lewy Body Dementia, advancing critical work to better understand the earliest brain changes that drive memory loss and cognitive decline.
Dr. Craig’s research focuses on synapses, which are the tiny but powerful connections that allow brain cells to communicate. In Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, these connections begin to weaken or disappear long before brain cells themselves are lost, and this early damage is closely tied to memory and thinking problems. By studying synapses directly in the human brain, Dr. Craig’s team aims to uncover where and how this breakdown begins.
Using cutting-edge imaging technologies, her lab will examine postmortem human brain tissue from individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and older adults without dementia. By combining expansion microscopy, which physically enlarges brain tissue so microscopic structures can be seen in greater detail, with lattice light-sheet microscopy, which allows large volumes of tissue to be imaged quickly and at high resolution, the team will be able to visualize synapses in ways that were not previously possible. These approaches will reveal how dementia-related proteins interact with and damage the brain’s communication networks.
This work will help identify which parts of the brain’s communication system are most vulnerable in dementia and most closely linked to memory loss. That knowledge is a crucial step toward developing future therapies that could one day protect or restore synapses, with the goal of slowing or preventing cognitive decline.
Dr. Craig’s human-focused, technology-driven approach reflects the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health’s commitment to research that bridges discovery and impact for people living with brain disorders. The Centre is grateful to the CLEAR Foundation for their partnership in supporting this important work and is proud to see Dr. Craig’s leadership and innovation recognized.
